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Imaging analytics promise to change the practice of radiology, an Intermountain official says.

By Bernie Monegain

March 16, 2017

Intermountain Healthcare is working with Zebra Medical Vision, a deep learning imaging analytics company, based in Israel to integrate machine learning in medical imaging analysis. The goal is to provide better patient care.

Here’s how it works: Zebra-Med’s analytics engine receives imaging data and analyzes findings indicative of cardiovascular, pulmonary, metabolic and bone health. Intermountain will use the results to identify patients at risk. As Zebra-Med’s engine grows with new insights it will be able to provide increasingly comprehensive reports that will lead to more accurate, cost effective patient treatment.

The analytics engine can also scan large imaging archives to help at-risk organizations better understand underlying risks patients face.

These population-level insights on chronic diseases can then be translated to early detection and intervention, with significant positive effects on the quality and cost of patient care, physicians point out.

“We believe imaging analytics will change how we practice radiology over the next decade,” Keith White, MD, medical director of imaging services at Intermountain, said in a statement. “Our physicians will be more productive and be enabled to create clinically actionable discrete data through the use of automated assistants that will help them deal with ever increasing workloads – without compromising quality of care.”

Zebra Medical Vision CEO Elad Benjamin added that the deployment of Zebra-Med’s Analytics engine would help Intermountain break new ground.

“Machine learning and deep learning will have a great impact on healthcare and radiology, he added.